An Okinawa-Manila joint performance was held in the Philam Life auditorium last July 3, 2008, a Thursday. As an opening gala for the Philippine-Japan Friendship Month, the Okinawa Culture Association, composing of five Japanese dancers, seven Japanese musicians and two association heads, visited Manila, Philippines for a world-tour concert featuring Japanese court and folk dances that have been developed through these years from being a culture which is very traditional, to a present high form of art that takes thorough practice for a professional and standardized music and dance that Japan keeps and can offer to the world.

 

            I was late by thirty minutes on the concert so, I missed almost half of the music played. During that first thirty minutes, three classical court music-dances have begun and I was lucky enough to watch and finish the remaining three (Hanafu, Menuhama and Agechikuden) before the second part would start. The music is varied and it’s not safe to generalize japananese music. All I’ve noticed is that contrasts in sounds are essential and evocative. I have learned later on that these differences – contrasts in timbre, rhythm and pitch plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of each uniquely created and performed music.

 

Hanafu

           

Recognizing Hanafu music, which lasts 8 minutes according to the pamphlet offered to the audience, is a traditional Japanese music with repetitive beats. Most Japanese music is metrical but it’s quite hard to recognize how many beats are there in a meter. Japanese music is contrasting and that gives a certain drama or feeling per beat produced.

 

            In addition to Hanafu, a flute is played all through-out the piece and the instrument isn’t a shakuhachi bamboo flute. The flute used is a smaller one although its fundamental way of usage can be matched up to the playing techniques of shakuhachi.

 

            In the Hanafu music, the flute’s production of sound has a wide range of tones just by looking at the flutist’s hand and mouth (through blowing). Usually, flute playing have free rhythm in Japan so I guess, Hanafu is beatless and has free rhythm as well.

 

            There is also a soloist in this part and a drum is hit though not at every phrase unlike in a gamelan ensemble. I also saw a shamisen lute which is like a guitar only, shamisen is roughly square-shaped and has only three strings. The shamisen plucking in Hanafu is slow and this is also important and well-accepted because of a certain space or interval per beat which creates or gives a silence, the emptiness yet, peaceful ambience it enters in the listener.

 

 

 

Menuhama

 

            This part uses drums frequently. There were no facial expressions shown by the dancers but movements of the body are essential and hand gestures are emphasized. The music is louder than Hanafu and the rhythm is livelier as well.

 

Agechikuden

           

            This part uses paper fans sheeted by a gold wrapper or painted perhaps by gold paint. It is quite dazzling in contrast to the music which is simple but from that simplicity, sprouts the virtue of respect and an attainable enlightenment. Achikuden is masculine in sound and it’s just like Menuhama which is played moderately with some repetitive beats also but doesn’t take too much interval between beats making it slow like Hanafu.

             

Folk songs

 

            The folk songs in Japan are traditionally attributed or owned by the rural class (living in the provinces in equivalent to Philippine society: probinsyano) mostly farmers and/or some poor merchants in the cities. These folk songs were invented to while away time as these rural working people plant rice on their fields, throw nets to the sea, weave cloth and pound grain. Just like the Ifugao have their own song of “pagtatanim,” countryside people in Japan also sing songs to relieve boredom from everyday’s works, to maintain an on-going momentum of happy farming or easy fishing, as an encouragement to do more and live with this strenuous activity until it ends, a self-expression just like one sings in the bathroom while taking a shower or a combination of all mentioned.

 

            Examples are Kanayo Amakawa (8 mins), Hatomi Bushi (3 mins) and Nakuni no Sekai (5 mins) among the many others. The aforementioned folk songs can be similarly characterized having a gay feeling which brings happiness and excitement to the listeners. All major Japanese instruments used here consists of a flute (shakuhachi), a shamisen lute, a koto (13-string zither) and a drum. In this blissful music, the vocal parts have flexible rhythm contrary to the steady and continuous pulses projected by the instruments. To accentuate this excitement and happiness, there’s even a musician who would whistle at some parts in the song.

 

 

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